--- title: "OpenAI Stamps Feet, Says Investors Aren’t Allowed to Back Its Rivals" description: "OpenAI just raised nearly $7 billion, raising its value to around $157 billion. Investors had to be willing to keep things exclusive." date: "2024-10-03" modified: "2024-10-03" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-demands-investors-dont-back-rivals" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "OpenAI" tags: - "ai" - "OpenAI" - "silicon valley" - "the digest" --- # OpenAI Stamps Feet, Says Investors Aren’t Allowed to Back Its Rivals ![OpenAI just raised nearly $7 billion, raising its value to around $157 billion. Investors had to be willing to keep things exclusive.]() *\Image: Stefano Guidi via Getty\* ## Going Exclusive OpenAI [announced yesterday]() that it had officially raised $6.6 billion in its latest investment round, an eyewatering figure that hoists the still-private AI company's valuation to an equally eyewatering $157 billion. But according to OpenAI, this just isn't another major cash influx to a company that [recently abandoned its nonprofit roots]() to embrace a [for-profit]() model. In its announcement, OpenAI described the funding round as a sign of "progress" in its alleged "mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity." And that, apparently, is a burden that OpenAI believes that only it should be trusted with. According [to the *Financial Times*](), OpenAI demanded that its eventual investors abstain from *also* funding any of OpenAI's competitors such as billionaire Elon Musk's xAI and Claude maker Anthropic. In short, if an investor wanted in on the OpenAI round, they needed to be willing to keep things exclusive. "OpenAI said to people: 'We'll give you allocation but we want you to be involved in a meaningful way in the business so you can't commit to our competitors,'" one person with knowledge of the deal told the *FT.* This level of exclusivity is uncommon in the investing world. Often, because investing means access to proprietary information about a given company, an investor may naturally abstain from putting significant capital into rival companies. In other cases, though, an investor might want to spread funding across an industry, especially if they believe a nascent technology to be the future. In any case, OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman's *insistence* on exclusivity as central to the deal is pretty rare — and could signal that OpenAI is feeling the heat from well-funded industry rivals. ## Uber Flashbacks Some have pointed out that the strange deal echoes a policy held by the ridesharing app phenom Uber in the 2010s. "If a company holds all the cards," one unnamed VC told the *FT*, "they can force people to do things unnaturally." Through that lens, OpenAI's ability to raise nearly $7 billion while demanding exclusivity seems to speak to the company's dominance in the AI industry landscape. AI is an intensely competitive market, with the likes of Google, xAI, Meta, and Anthropic all in the race to come out ahead. And yet, it looks like major funds are willing to put all of their eggs in [OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's basket](). "Were grateful to our investors for their trust in us," reads OpenAI's announcement, "and we look forward to working with our partners, developers, and the broader community to shape an AI-powered ecosystem and future that benefits everyone." **More on OpenAI:** [*OpenAI Is Putting Profits First, Yet It's Bleeding an Astronomical Amount of Money*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()